Thanks for posting these, Tennie. It's a
very complicated region, but the folks at Volcano Cafe are excellent resources.
Since I follow some seismologists on Twitter, I did have a go at trying to understand the quake, but it appears to have unfolded in a very complex fashion.
For instance:
This Cornell seismologist is very good at public outreach and is sharing a lot of interesting information in plain English.
In case the link mentioned didn't carry over,
here is the 3D model of quake progression in the M7.8 and M7.5 sequences.
Another example, from a Cal Poly Pomona seismologist:
From a science standpoint, I just don't know what to say about this massive event. But one message comes through from all sources: the earthquake was inevitable; the scale of the damage was
not.
Geologically, it's apples and oranges, but here's an example of the opposite end of the
preparedness spectrum -- what a nearby earthquake more than an order of magnitude larger felt like on the upper floors of a Tokyo skyscraper in 2011:
Well, guess you can watch it on
YouTube. It's amazing: everybody is scared, but after the primary waves come through, little is changed and one guy at his desk reflexively sips his coffee. Then the waves come again.
Even less costly/technical preparedness somewhere near the middle of that spectrum could have saved so many lives in Turkey this year.